$100 in 1930 is worth $134 in 1947,
because prices increased 33.5% over that period, an average of
1.72% a year.
$100 in 1930 has
the same buying power as
$134
in 1947
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
33.5%
Average inflation rate
1.72% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$134
Price difference ($100 base)
$33.53
CPI in 1930
16.7
CPI in 1947
22.3
Inflation in 1930
-2.34%
Inflation in 1947
14.36%
$100 in 1930 → 1947
$134
$100 in 1947 → 1930
$74.89
What happened to prices between 1930 and 1947
Between 1930 and 1947, the Consumer Price Index went from 16.7 to 22.3.
Cumulatively, prices increased 33.5%, which works out to an average of
1.72% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1930 bought what
$0.75 buys in 1947: the 1930 dollar
lost 25.1% of its purchasing power over
these 17 years.
Consumer prices fell 2.3% in 1930, a mild decline compared with what was
coming but the first sign that the summer 1929 downturn was not going to be
short. The National Bureau of Economic Research dates that contraction from
August 1929, and by the time it finally bottomed out in March 1933 it would
run 43 months, the longest of any downturn in the NBER’s chronology back to
1854. Congress made the trade picture worse in June, when President Hoover
signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on more than 20,000
imported goods to some of the highest levels in a century. Trading partners
retaliated with tariffs of their own, and global trade volumes collapsed
over the next several years, deepening a downturn economists still debate
how much the tariff itself worsened. The financial system cracked that fall:
a regional banking panic culminated in the December 11 failure of the Bank
of United States in New York, at the time the largest bank failure in
American history, wiping out more than $200 million in deposits. It was the
first of four banking panics that would hit the country before 1933 was
out. Consumer prices still stood 68.7% above their 1913
starting point, but the direction had clearly turned. First-class postage
held at 2 cents, unchanged for eleven straight years.
Every 1930 amount converts to 1947 at the same ratio, 1.34: $1,000 becomes
$1,335, and $10,000 becomes $13,353.
Amount in 1930
Value in 1947
$1.00
$1.34
$5.00
$6.68
$10.00
$13.35
$20.00
$26.71
$50.00
$66.77
$100
$134
$500
$668
$1,000
$1,335
$5,000
$6,677
$10,000
$13,353
$100,000
$133,533
$1,000,000
$1,335,329
Inflation by spending category, 1930–1947
Between 1930 and 1947, apparel rose the most, up 64.9%, while food rose the least, up 54.5%, against 33.5% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1930
spending costs in 1947, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1930 →
All items (CPI-U)
1.72%
$134
Apparel
2.98%
$165
Food
2.59%
$154
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1930: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1930 to 1947
Prices climbed fastest in the 1940s, averaging 6.88% a year, and fell in the 1930s (1.7% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1930–1947 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1930, at end
1930–1940
-1.75%
-16.2%
$83.83
1940–1947
6.88%
59.3%
$134
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1930
$100 from 1930 had already become $84.43 by
1938, on its way to $134 in 1947; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
In 1947, prices rose 14.4% and $100 from 1930 had the buying
power of $134; the year's average CPI of 22.3 is the level
behind every 1947 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 14.4% in 1947, up from 1946’s 8.3% and
the fastest annual increase since 1920, as the last of the wartime price
controls disappeared and a year of strikes, wage catch-up, and lingering
shortages hit consumers all at once. Congress answered the previous year’s
strike wave that June, overriding President Truman’s veto to pass the
Taft-Hartley Act, which banned secondary boycotts and the closed shop and
let states adopt “right-to-work” laws curbing union power. American
attention was also turning outward. In a June 5 speech at Harvard,
Secretary of State George Marshall outlined a U.S.-funded plan to rebuild
Western Europe’s economies, an effort that would become known as the
Marshall Plan once Congress funded it the following year. The government
reorganized itself for the confrontation with the Soviet Union that plan was
partly designed to prevent: the National Security Act, signed July 26,
created the Department of Defense, the Air Force as a separate service, the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. Consumer
prices stood 125.3% above their 1913 level and 30.4% above
1929’s pre-Depression peak, up from just 1.2% above it four
years earlier. First-class postage held at 3 cents, and the minimum wage
stayed at 40 cents an hour.
MLA: “Inflation from 1930 to 1947: $100 is worth $134 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1947/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1930 to 1947. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1930-to-1947/